Poster Talk: Sky Crawlers Update

image source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-04-28/oshii-sky-crawlers-trailer-officially-posted-online

I take back what I said about how this was going to be old school animation with less CGI. The new poster, with the added figures (presumably main characters) says its going to be CGI-heavy. Sigh...

Poster Talk: The Sky Crawlers

image: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-06-20/oshii

Right, this is Mamoru Oshii's latest film which I refered to in an earlier post. The poster has been out for some time and I can't gush enough about it. The design is deceptively simple. Some people naturally would complain that like their first teaser advert of blue sky and fluffy clouds, this poster tells us absolutely nothing about the film. I agree. The poster says very little, and I don't know Japanese, so it's worse, since the taglines are beyond my comprehension too. Nevertheless, allow me to endeavour with gushing.

Firstly, before we get anywhere, a caveat. I am one of those people who are overly fond of blue skies dotted with clouds, so I am defintely approaching this from a biased point of view. If we had that Oz poster, I would assure you that blue skies and a rainbow would have found it's way into the poster somehow. In my defense, it would have fit the theme very much.

Right, so, on to the Sky Crawlers poster. It's nice. The simple design is refreshing. If you park it next to posters that try to squash as many famous faces as humanly possible into the frame, it'll be crowded, looks like a star vehicle (which the film likely is), and more importantly, looks as though it is trying too hard. A poster like this stands out from the rest because of it being opposite - sparse composition, and no stars or characters or various other objects to distract from its clean design. And because minimalist is always tasteful of course.

If you ask me, this poster works for me because it tantalizes. Rather than trying to overwhelm with information, instead, it refuses to say anything, which induces curiosity. Far more can be said by remaining politely poker-faced and inviting speculation. Having said that, I would also add that such a poster attests to several things already. One, it is about aviation. Definitely. Two, it is definitely a wistful sort of film, not in the vein of Ghost in the Shell, which is all cyber punk; this one looks nostalgic, old school. CGI will be taking a backseat here. Three, it's attempting to straddle arty and commercial. In other words, it is tailored for the young movie going crowd. The plot, I suspect, won't be hard to follow at all, and there will be humorous bits.

All guesses of course. I have not watched it yet, and there is only a miserable short trailer out. I wonder if they'll be bringing in this to Singapore, this and Miyazaki's new film... At any rate, a pretty poster, and it says a lot. Really.

The Book Post: House of Many Ways preview

image: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/diana-wynne-jones/house-of-many-ways.htm

Hohoho. The sequel to Howl's Moving Castle.
I'd actually heard about this late last year, but didn't want to be too happy till the news was official. And you can't get any more official when the cover's out.

The book will be released in May/June 2008, which is...really soon! I hadn't expected it to be so fast, since the news was still pretty much the kind of "I heard so and so say so" sort of rumour. At any rate, I just want to blabber on about the cover for a bit.

Firstly, I was hoping for a more exciting cover. Or something with curly font, and this cover, with its straightforward vertical lines and realist style just doesn't do for a author who has had a habit of breaking stuffy societal conventions. Secondly, just because she is British, and her characters speak with (I can imagine) a crisp upper-class-ish accent (Chrestomanci) doesn't mean they would like that apalling Victorian era yellow wallpaper print on the bottom half of the cover. In other words, this cover is boring, even if I have to admit that this gradual melting of wallpaper prints into multiple doors is a rather nice concept.

On the other hand, I see what might be an homage to Miyazaki and the animators at Studio Ghibli. If you squint at the top right corner of the cover, you'll see this castle-shaped blot that looks suspiciously like the ramshackle thing Howl puts together in Hauru no Ugoko Shiro, right down to the turrety things rising out of the mist, and which seems to echo the opening scene of the film.

The great thing is, obviously, there is another DWJ book out to read really soon. I can't really be bothered about the cover (yeah right) so long as there is something inside to read, though a nice cover that does justice to the book contents really helps too. Of course, i can't say what the content of this book would be like, but I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be good...

In other news, fans of Mamoru Oshii, long time rival and some time collaborator with Hayao Miyazaki would be pleased to know if you haven't already known, that his new film, Sky Crawlers is due to be released some time this year.